So…yesterday (04 20 2009) ended my 9 1/2 years at Saturn - General Motors Spring Hill Manufacturing (see article below). My team leader was insistent that I come in for a “mandatory meeting” when I called in sick after I struggled to make a doctor’s appointment that morning (a story for another blog). Turns out the meeting was to inform me that I was “officially separated from GM”, along with 7 other non-represented (non-union) team members in the Service Parts Operations warehouse. Even had the pleasure of security escorting me out after clearing out my cubicle (standard procedure). I was so weak & exhausted, I was like whatever, I just wanted to get home & back in bed. When I pulled out the SSPO parking lot, I took a sigh of relief…it felt like a heavy weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I hadn’t been happy there for years…not since trading in our Saturn “red” badges for the GM “blue” badges.

I have no clue what I’m going to do next…but while leaving the property, I heard the beginning of a somewhat obscure disco song by Aquarian Dream called “Look Ahead”:

“Things are changing, life’s rearranging

Happy times are coming your way

Hold your head up

Don’t be discouraged”

So I took that as confirmation that everything’s gonna be alright

Aquarian Dream - Look Ahead (1976)

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Tennessean Article:

GM layoffs include Spring Hill

1,600 jobs at risk nationally

By Tom Krisher • ASSOCIATED PRESS • April 21, 2009

DETROIT — About 1,600 white-collar workers at General Motors, including some in Spring Hill, Tenn., will lose their jobs in the next few days as the troubled automaker accelerates cost cuts to qualify for more government aid.

Plant spokeswoman Kate Neary said Monday that “there will be some” layoffs among the 394 salaried employees at Spring Hill but she has not been told how many.

GM North America President Troy Clarke said Monday in an e-mail to employees that the layoffs are needed to ensure the company’s long-term viability.

GM is living on $13.4 billion in government loans and faces a June 1 deadline to cut costs.

Clarke said the next week will be “a very trying time for the entire GM team, but especially for those employees directly impacted by these actions.”

Last month GM began cutting 3,400 U.S. salaried jobs as part of 47,000 job cuts that it will make worldwide by year’s end. Some of the positions will be cut through normal attrition, but most will be through involuntary layoff.

Hardest hit will be the Detroit metropolitan area, especially at GM’s downtown headquarters and its sprawling technical center in suburban Warren.

The company will be close to its 3,400 goal after the 1,600 layoffs, spokesman Tom Wilkinson said.

Neary said that all GM plants “are impacted in some form or fashion” by the layoffs.

The Spring Hill plant has a total of 3,200 employees building the Chevrolet Traverse crossover utility vehicle and four-cylinder engines for other GM vehicles.

Aid for laid-off workers

The cuts may go even deeper as GM moves toward the government-imposed deadline. CEO Fritz Henderson said Friday that the company will close more factories beyond the five announced in February. Factories to be closed have not been identified.

“There is no question, as we look at our revised plan to go deeper and go faster in our operational restructuring, there will be further reductions in manpower, people, that are going to affect communities, affect plants and people, both on hourly and the salaried side of the business,” Henderson told reporters.

Clarke’s e-mail said GM will provide laid-off workers with resources and support through the process.

Wilkinson said workers would get severance pay of about two weeks for every year of service, up to six months. The packages include base pay and the company’s share of health care and other benefits, he said. The company will provide services to help them find other jobs for up to three months, he said.

Bankruptcy more likely

GM must cut costs and win concessions from bondholders and its unions to get more government aid. The government’s auto task force has said the company must persuade the holders of $28 billion in GM bonds to take stock in exchange for part of the debt.

If it doesn’t restructure enough by the deadline, Detroit-based GM could be forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with the government providing financing. The government advocates a short “surgical” bankruptcy to cancel debt, change union contracts and separate underperforming units from the company.

Henderson said Friday that the company still would prefer to restructure out of court as it tries to prove it can survive to repay the government, but he conceded that bankruptcy protection is more likely than in the past.

Associated Press writer Kimberly S. Johnson contributed to this report.